


death disguised

by cptnjtk



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Kid Jim, Kid Spock, M/M, Tarsus IV, depictions of violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-05
Updated: 2018-08-07
Packaged: 2019-05-18 12:33:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14852828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cptnjtk/pseuds/cptnjtk
Summary: Death is not poetic, Jim Kirk thinks. It is literal. Death is both the immovable object and the unstoppable force. Death is cruel and does not discriminate. It grasps life and love in its cold, unforgiving hands, stealing them away and leaving destruction and grief in its wake.At age thirteen, Jim Kirk learns that death, much like a sword, can be wielded - if it is so ordered.-Jim meets a strange Vulcan boy while on the run on Tarsus, and they must band together if they have any hope of surviving.





	1. Chapter 1

Death is not poetic, Jim Kirk thinks. It is literal. Death is both the immovable object and the unstoppable force. Death is cruel and does not discriminate. It grasps life and love in its cold, unforgiving hands, stealing them away and leaving destruction and grief in its wake.

At age thirteen, Jim Kirk learns that death, much like a sword, can be wielded - if it is so ordered.

*

The smell of rotten crops was pungent, exacerbated by the damp heat brought by the rising sun. 

It was mid July, the summer heat was suffocating and the sun blistering, and the scent of fungus hung heavily in the air, wafting lazily through the endless miles of dead crops.

Sweat beaded at the tips of his blonde hair, trickling down his neck and his face, dampening his shirt and stinging his eyes. Jim hastily wiped it away with his hand, that was caked in dry mud, as he slowly crawled through the fields, followed silently and obediently by three young children. 

They imitated Jim's movement precisely, not daring to deviate in any shape or form, their skeletal frames following him closely. They were low enough on the ground not to be spotted at a distance, and weeks of filth and grime coating their skin and clothes allowing them to blend seamlessly with dried mud and black fungus coating the old farming fields.

"Heads down," Jim had said, as he shoved a meagre half-loaf of stale bread and three mealy apples into his bag before hoisting it over his shoulder, "even if you hear a noise, keep your heads down. Am I clear?"

Jim ignored the scorching sun burning his back, the painful pangs of hunger in his stomach, and the nauseating scent of death that caused bile to rise in his throat. He listened carefully to the silence. It was deafening.

They needed to keep moving. Kodos' gaurds had raided the largest section of the small colony on Tarsus IV in the very early hours of the morning, searching for survivors in the empty, abandoned houses. Jim and the other children had barely made out on time, escaping through the back door of the house they had been hiding in. Jim could still hear the sound of the trucks rolling into the street, the sound of doors being kicked in and windows smashed, and the look of utter horror that had dawned on the children's faces. The rules had been quick as they hastily grabbed their very few belongings: follow Jim, head down, no sound, and no looking back.

They made a break for the mountains, running from the small colony as fast as they could manage, with what little energy they had left. 

That had been hours ago, when the darkness of night had provided enough cover to allow them to run freely through the fields for as long as they could, until their lungs burned, and their legs ached, and the biting cold was enough to distract them from their growling stomachs and the putrid stench of decay.

The mountains were not ideal, especially when the bitter cold swept through the planet at night and the lack of abandoned houses meant leaving the children on their own for hours in order to search for food, if there was any to be found.

The mountains were close, maybe a half hour away at this rate. They would have to keep going. Jim wondered how the children were faring. They had been traveling miles and miles, for hours and hours. Jim decided to check how they were holding up.

They had a system to check. While crawling, Jim would quietly tap his foot off the ground. Seeing this, Kevin Riley, the youngest of the children at age four, would imitate this action and so on. Once it reached the last person they would do one of two things; they would tap the person in front of them's right foot if everything was okay, and tap the left foot if something was not. The person in front of them would then imitate this action and so on, until it reached Jim again. 

It was a flawed system, Jim knew, as he tapped his foot off of the ground, it didn't allow him to know the exact problem and could easily become confusing, he knew, as he recieved a light tap on his right foot, indicating that everyone was okay, but it kept them quiet and mobile, reducing their risk to exposure and ensuring their survival.

Without pause, Jim continued to lead the way through the rotting fields. 

*

They took shelter in a cave in the mountains. It brought shade, which Jim was thankful for. His skin, stretched tight across his bones and paper thin, was raw and burned due to the prolonged exposure to the sun.

"You'll be okay, Dee just try to sleep on your stomach and it should heal in a few days," Jim commented, carefully examining the sunburn spread across Dehska's back. Dee's ribs protruded from her back, jutting out against her green skin. Aged seven, she had been one of the few Orions on the colony, and along with Kevin, one of the youngest targets on Kodos' kill list. Jim had found her while raiding for food in abandoned houses - she had been hiding a cupboard in her parent's room for days, after she had heard the firing of phasers and the shouts of soldiers down in her kitchen.

When Jim had enetered the house, the stench of death immediate and choking. Her parent's corpses still sat at the table, slumped on their chairs, with a gaping hole through her mother's chest, and a large chunk of her other mother's head splattered across the table. A broken PADD still lay in her hand.

A merciful killing, Jim had thought, and his hatred for Kodos boiled in his blood. No murder should be deemed merciful, and yet the tales he had heard of soldier brutality across the colony maintained that this execution had in fact had been benign - kind even.

Jim had covered Dee's face as he carried her out of the house, holding her close to his chest with whispered promises of safety and everything was going to be okay.

"Thank you, JT," Dee said, a small grateful smile on her face, as he helped her pull her shirt back back over head, trying his best to avoid her sunburn. She moved over to sit by Kevin on the ground, who snuggled close to her.

"No problem, Dee," Jim replied, "alright, Tom, you're next." Tom Leighton was the oldest of the three children at ten years old. His face was gaunt, his eyes hollow, and his dark skin ashy. Tom lifted his shirt off to allow Jim to inspect the damage. "Nothing too bad, Tom, no need to worry." Such a simple reassurance in such desperate times.

"Now, how about something to eat?" Jim asked, retrieving his bag and ignoring the burning sting on his own back. He rummaged through the bag. Three apples and half of an old loaf of bread, two flasks for water, three stolen knives, a thin blanket, and a broken communicator.

Using one of the knives, Jim cut up one apple into four pieces and tore the bread into small pieces to be shared. The children were delighted, eating their share slowly as to savour it. Jim placed the rest back in his bag, tucked away safely. 

Later Jim watched the children huddle up on the ground, snuggling closely together for warmth as Jim lay a blanket over thd top of them and wished them goodnights.

They were so skinny and small, Jim thought. It was expected, but didn't change how frightening it was. Kevin was only four years old and yet Jim could count each vertebrae on his back. Dee was seven and yet her legs were so thin that they didn't even touch. Tom was ten and yet Kevin could wrap his little fingers all the way around his wrist. 

These were children. But death does not care for age, and if these children are to starve until they are nothing more than walking corpses, then so be it and death will take them, unpitying and remorseless. And Jim remembers back to those merciful killings of Dee's parents, and thinks perhaps that death can be compassionate, and he knows in his heart that if death were merciful, he would take these children tonight while they slept in temporary peaceful bliss, and not prolongue their death until they saw no reason to live.

*

Jim kept watch. He did every night while the children slept. He sat alert, knife at the ready, ready to protect the children in any way he could but he was tired. He was exhausted, hungry, and he ached everywhere in his bones.

He shook himself awake once more, trying to fight the growing to urge to close his eyes, only for ten minutes, it wouldn't hurt, just te-

A rustle in the nearby bushes snapped Jim wide awke and he quickly clambered to his feet, moving in front of the children, his grip on the knife tightening while they slept, unaware of the potential damgers facing them. He could hear whispering, and his heart pounded quickly amd uncomfortably in his chest, his blood pumping, and his breathing quick.

The whispers were getting closer and closer, he couldn't understand them, and he was panicking because there was more than one person and it was too late to run, and it would be all his fault for dozing off, and the kids, the kids, the kids -

Kids. 

Jim was standing in front of a group of three kids, who stared at him from the entrance to the cave. The tallest, a Vulcan around the age of fourteen or fifteen, took a step forward and raised his hand in familiar gesture. 

Jim lowered his knife, not completely, but no longer threateningly. "Who are you?"

"I am Spock. This," he gestured to a young Vulcan girl with dark skin around seven years old, "is T'shel, and this," he gestured to an Andorian boy, around nine, "is Ejholo. May I inquire about your own identity?"

Jim looked at them, assessing them. They were just as thin and frail as Jim, just as filthy and caked in mud and blood. Jim looked at the two children before adressing Spock. "I'm JT." He replied. "Are you on the list?"

Spock gave a single nod.

Jim lowered his weapon.


	2. Chapter 2

"Me and Tom lived in the Northern section," Jim told Spock as they both sat by the mouth of the cave, a knife held loosely in his hand, much more alert now. He couldn't risk falling asleep, couldn't risk putting the kids in further danger.

The children, plus the additional two that had accompanied Spock, lay together on the ground, huddled close for warmth, a thin blanket barely covering them all.

"We were one of the first sections to have our communication devices confiscated. Kodos had said that the abundant use of PADDs and communicators interfered with subspace frequencies, which could affect their ability to efficiently communicate with Starfleet." Jim explained, "this rule was introduced shortly after the Proclamation D-19."

Looking back, Proclamation D-19 had been one of the first indicators that something wasn't right. It decreed that thirty-five percent of agricultural production in each settlement had to be submitted to the local authorities. It had been fairly self-explanatory, according to Jim's uncle. They were an isolated colony in previously uncharted space, he had said, it made sense to set aside provisions in the case of an emergency.

Being thirteen years old, Jim had not particularly cared. Food became a bit more restricted, but it was no more than he was used to at home. He, like much of the colony, put the thought to the back of his mind.

However, not everyone was compliant. People complained, naturally. Things were tough enough as they were, they didn't need any restrictions.

"Naturally, naturally, things will become a tad more difficult," Kodos agreed in a speech adressed to the entire colony, and Jim remembered watching it on the television in his home, and he remembered feeling his aunt's grip on his shoulder tighten fractionally, "but survival depends on drastic measures." And that had been that.

Until they introduced Proclamation F-23.

Proclamation F-23: all communication devices are to be handed in to local authorities. Failure to comply with this shall result in a penalty, tantamount to the misdemeanour as so ordered by Adrian Kodos, Governor of Tarsus IV.

Things only went downhill from there.

"We met Kevin," Jim gestured briefly to the smallest of the children, "a few weeks after we fled the section. Brave little guy, gotta admit - hid in the local school, see. He's pretty good at hiding cause he's so small. Can fit into all the nooks and crannies. And Dehska, little Dee there, she was - her mothers - they - she - it wasn't pretty but we got her out and took her with us. Been just the four of us ever since. What about you guys?"

Spock's face had remained stoic during Jim's rambles and he merely raised an eyebrow to acknowledge Jim's question.

"T'shel and I lived in the same section, much like you and Tom. Our section, due to circumstances beyond our control, was in an area that allowed for very limited agricultural production. When Proclamation D-19 had been introduced, our section raised the most concern - our neighbour, a Cardassian man named Craad Lar went as far as to outright protest this development. Two days later he disappeared, never to be seen again. Anyone that protested disappeared, and then one night they showed up. In the dead of night, the Huntsman raided our section and they.." Spock fell silent. The Huntsman were the name given to Kodos' soldiers, and they lived up to their titles. "It was chaos outside, people were being killed in every direction I looked. My aunt was dead before she even stepped outside. Amongst the chaos I saw T'shel and Ejholo, I took them and I ran. We have been on the run ever since." Spock finished.

"We're in the same boat then, huh?" Jim commented, looking down at his thin hands, his tan skin stretched tight across the bones, veins standing out prominently.

"There is something else you must know, before you allow us to travel with you." Spock said, and Jim merely nodded for him to continue. Spock remained silent for a few moments, and Jim did not push him, until finally, hesitantly almost, he said, "I was one of the first on Kodos' list. I am now known as a Priority-Zero Fugitive."

Jim stilled, and the grip on his knife tightened subconsciously. Spock either didn't notice or didn't comment. A Priority-Zero Fugitive was the most wanted, the most hunted individual on Tarsus.

Jim remembered seeing posters and wanted signs that stated that any and all sightings Priority-Zeros were to be reported, or, if possible, killed on sight. It wouldn't be in Jim's best interests to travel with one of Kodos' most wanted. It might endanger the kids, might upgrade them to Priority-Zero Fugitives. And those deaths were not quick, not painless or easy.

"I know, JT," Spock interrupted Jim's train of thought, "that my status concerns you but I have come this far without being detected, even in the company of two children. I would not put them, or any child, at risk. Vulcan abilities surpass that of Terrans, Orions, and Andorians. I use my abilities to keep us, and, if you would allow it, you all safe."

Pausing momentarily to gather his thoughts, Jim asked, "what kind of abilities?"

"Heightened senses - hearing, sight, smell. It makes it easier to detect if anyone is near." Jim thought of how he hadn't heard Spock and the others appear until it was too late. "My mental structure allows me to calm the children, to keep them quiet and soothe their minds." Jim remembered the times he had hopelessy tried to convince Kevin and Dee to stop their crying and be silent - otherwise they would have been found. "My strength is three times that of a human, and I am trained in the arts of Suus Mahna." There was a time when Jim just barely managed to fight off one of Kodos' men, he could use the extra strength.

"I see," Jim commented, mulling it over but he thought of their rations. Could they learn to divide their restricted foods among even more people? It was a selfish thought, Jim knew, but the children's lives were his biggest concern.

"I also require less food," Spock said, as if reading Jim's thoughts. "I would not offer our company if I believed it would greatly deplete your resources."

Eyes darting away from the black, star speckled sky, Jim's blue eyes met Spock's and he we momentarily startled by how _human_ they looked, brown orbs gazing at him calmly.

"Why are you listed as Priority-Zero?" Jim finally asked.

"My father is an ambassador. I believe Kodos feared that if I found a way to contact him, it would mean an end to his regime and lead to his own downfall. I am therefore considered an extreme threat to Kodos' society."

"What do you mean? You think that Kodos wants Tarsus to stay like this? With people starving because of a famine?"

"Yes, I do believe that. However, there is more to it. Before I came to Tarsus, my mother expressed concern about Kodos as Governor."

"Why?" Jim asked, curiosity peaked. As far as he had known, Kodos had been approved by the higher-ups at Starfleet, and many people were happy to see such a decorated man at the helm of a programme such as Tarsus IV.

Spock looked up at the stars again, a sweeping light breeze rustling his black hair. "He was a graduate at Starfleet Academy when my mother enrolled many years ago, long before he became a politician and a governer. She said he had expressed an odd fascination with eugenics, he studied many cases of it in history - the Holocaust during the Terran Second World war, the Eugenics Wars on Earth during the 1990s - more importantly, he was also fascinated with how it occurred on such a large scale, how it was implemented. It is easy to choose what characteristics you believe to be superior, it it easy to reproduce said characteristics but it leaves the question of what is to be done with those you consider inferior - those whose continued existence represents a threat to your supposed superior society."

Jim felt uneasy, something cold crawling up his spine, making the hair on the back of his neck stand on edge, and an unpleasant feeling settling in his stomach that had nothing to do with hunger.

_"The revolution is successful. But survival depends on drastic measures. Your continued existence represents a threat to the well-being of society. Your lives mean slow death to the more valued members of the colony. Therefore, I have no alternative but to sentence you to death. Your execution is so ordered, signed Kodos, Governor of Tarsus IV."_

"Do you think," Jim swallowed, his throat dry and scratchy, "do you think that Kodos planned this?" Spock didn't answer, merely continued to gaze at the stars, and Jim took that as an answer. "How? How could he have possibly done it?"

Spock finally looked at him, his brown eyes meeting Jim's and he asked, "what do you know about Section 31?"

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you like the slight twist, I know it doesn't follow the Tarsus story exactly, but I really want to explore Tarsus before and after the famine so let me know if it gets a little too complicated at times. Anyways hope you enjoyed!

**Author's Note:**

> first chapter is quite short but i hope you enjoyed nonetheless, let me know in the comments! thanks for reading!


End file.
